Sounds Like There Were More Harlan Crow Flights

Last updated: 2024/08/06 at 7:15 AM

As part of his committee’s investigation into the friendly relationship between conservative megadonor Harlan Crow and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) revealed in a letter on Monday yet another unreported instance of luxury travel that, it appears, Crow gifted Thomas.

Writing to Crow’s attorney, Wyden said that his panel’s review of Customs and Border Protection records showed that Thomas and his wife Ginni Thomas — a conservative activist whose own work has raised questions about the Supreme Court justice’s impartiality, specifically on cases related to Jan. 6 — took a round trip flight on Crow’s private jet between Hawaii and New Zealand in 2010.

The travel was never disclosed on any financial disclosure forms, “even though Justice Thomas has amended disclosures to reflect other international travel on Mr. Crow’s private jet,” Wyden wrote in the letter, in which he requested that Crow’s attorneys actually comply with his requests for additional information about the financial relationship between the two men.

“I am deeply concerned that Mr. Crow may have been showering a public official with extravagant gifts, then writing off those gifts to lower his tax bill,” Wyden wrote.

While Thomas has not yet publicly commented on the new details Wyden surfaced in the letter, it is, of course, just one of many revelations made public either by congressional investigators or journalists over the last dozen-some months as Thomas’ penchant for accepting and not disclosing gifts from the right-wing donor propels calls for Supreme Court ethics reform. Wyden’s investigation is just one of many attempts in recent weeks and months from Democrats to push for more oversight of those sitting on the high court.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) last month introduced articles of impeachment against Justices Thomas and Samuel Alito for not disclosing travel paid for by benefactors and for not recusing themselves from cases related to Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, despite clear and present conflicts of interest. Just last week, President Biden also proposed term limits for Supreme Court justices, as well as other reforms.

In his letter, Wyden asked Crow’s attorneys to comply with his requests so that the panel could “better understand the means and scale of Mr. Crow’s undisclosed largess to Justice Thomas” as it works to write legislation to prevent such behavior moving forward.

Read the letter here.